Troubleshooting the Inbox in Outlook Express
Sometimes the Inbox in Outlook Express can become corrupted. Symptoms of a corrupted Inbox can vary, but one of the common symptoms is messages mysteriously disappear or messages can't be deleted.
The fix for a corrupted Inbox is to delete the Inbox.dbx and let Outlook Express create a new one the next time OE is opened.
Some times there are messages in the old inbox that you desperately want to recover. This may or may not be possible. There are some third party programs may work. Before trying a third party program, however, you can try to recover the messages yourself. Follow the steps in the screenshots below to see if you can recover the messages.
First enable viewing hidden files and folders.
Screenshot Make a new folder in My Documents and name it Outlook Express Store.
Make another new folder and name it OE Backup. Screenshot
Now you need to change the Outlook Express Store location. Open Outlook Express, click Tools/Options/Maintenance. Then click the Store folder button and select Change. Screenshot You should then see a message saying 'Your store location will not be changed until you shutdown and restart Outlook Express.
Now close Outlook Express and reopen. Close it again and go to the new folder in My Documents, Outlook Express Store. Open the folder and copy these files as shown in this to the other new folder, OE Backup. Screenshot. The files are Deleted Items.dbx, Folders.dbx, Inbox.dbx, Offline.dbx and Outbox.dbx.